Greedy Goblin

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Tipping

I got another e-mail question about a topic that may bother lot of people:

Considering the spotlight effect, I am curious about the Goblin's perspective on tipping crafters who do not specify the amount of gold they would like for their time, but merely leave it up for the customer. Thanks for your consideration.

There are crafters who post "crafting X tips welcomed" or just link their tradeskills.

I'm unsure what these guys are up to. Some of them maybe leveling their skills, others are shy to ask an amount of gold in fear that they will be perceived as "greedy", others have no clue about the prices.

I have a very effective policy about them: I give 1G to those who write "tips are welcomed" and nothing to those who don't mention tips at all. Why should I pay anything if I can get it for free?

I've never got a bad comment on the 1G. I did got some "no tip?" comments on the nothing, replied instantly by "you did not asked for it, I thought you are leveling trade". I'm thinking about making a macro for that line, just like the one I have for "No thanks, I'm not interested in healing a HC dungeon at the moment".

You may have the thought that the crafter will think of you as "cheap". Probably he does. So what? You most probably never see this guy in your life, and if you do it's highly unlikely that he does not remembers you.

On the other side of the story: if you are a crafter, always specify crafting fee like: "[Enchanting] with your mats, 10G fee, I repay it if I get a levelup". This way the people will know what fee they have to enter into the trade window. If they don't do it, you can just put the materials back. If you already crafted the item and they refuse to pay, COD them the item for the mentioned fee.

34 comments:

As for tips, my wife charges 10g for portals, if she has to go out of her way to get to them, if they come to her she let's them figure out a "tip", she's received as little as 1g to 20g for doing the portal.

I tend to give 5g tips, or maybe 10 or 15 if its a big craft (like an epic). Usually I just find a guildie who can do it for me.

And re; your picture. Not bad. My worst Heigan dance was 26 minutes. We literally only had a tank and a healer alive at the end of it, and all apart from 1 dps died right at the start. (i was the alive healer)

when i was enchanting i always mentioned "tips are welcome" for enchants that i learn at the trainer and a 10g fee for the ones that were raid-drops.when i had stuff crafted for me i always tipped 10g.i find it rude not to tip because the person didn`t ask. maybe the person relies on common sense, which is getting pretty rare these times. i experimented with not asking for tips, just doing the enchants. a rogue gave me 100g for tip ( i asked him if he put the sum wrong, he didn`t) and others put 10 silver in trade.

I am a master enchanter, tailor, and also got a JC with the epic stuff.I have been around since the birth of WOW, and having most of the old school enchants, the twink ones as well as the new ones.I never ask for tip, but if you dont tip me I will ignore you.I dont need your money, but as a token of respect for me, you give me a decent tip.You can get around being a cheapo, you can live like a cheapo, die like a cheapo, BUT you got NO class, NO style, and will never earn my respect./ignore/buy my scrolls cheapos

I charge depending on item, if its epic usually about 30-40g and i say to the person this is a garentee of the item thats why its so high, but trust worthy, it usually works too, even higher for rare items.Considering people are fearful sometimes they justify this cost especially after i note to them that there are alot of scammers about, its like i'm feeding them tabloid bullsh*t.

Oh and the pic made me cringe, my guild have been getting progressivly like the M+S and this boss tops the load, last few trys have ended with just me (a warrior tank) and a restro druid, the fight lasted 33mins and I can't remeber how many seconds, every DPS died in the first wave, all blamed their computer...i found it rather sad though :(

You'll love this, Gevlon. My guild charges 10g, payable to the guild bank, to anyone who dies on the Heigan dance. It's pretty rare now. Even if they've got 20,000g, no one wants to pay 10 because they messed up.

10g is also due for failing the pipe boss, Frogger, the ledge at Thaddius. Void zone deaths on Sarth 3D haven't been charged yet but I bet it's coming. I certainly don't like paying 10g whenever I mess up. It's happened though, and I grumble, but I pay more attention as a result.

Oh man, I keep forgetting I can't edit. And on tipping: I never go out of my way to do an enchant for a non-guildie anymore. Too many people don't pay even if I do specify the amount I would like for my work, and I've had to leave empty-handed after crossing the whole world.

I will enchant people's stuff if I know them, or they're right next to me. I do find, though, that the better the raiding guild, the higher the tip. Maybe those players have a sense of the value of enchants.

And some of my guildies tip me, or send me mats in the mail for future enchants! I love that, though I don't require it.

Sometimes people will say something like "I will give you 10 gold 4 summonz plzz", in which case I will take the money.

Other times I will summon people for free, or just refuse. It is all mood-dependant. Most of the time I refuse; it is too much effort to summon people I don't know, who like as not won't even say thanks.

I tip well in WOW for the same reason I do in real life. I have more money than I need, and being nicer than you have to be is the kind of thing that tends to cause a chain reaction. I've been the beneficiary of too many random acts of niceness to go around acting like a jerk.

Also, 18 minute heigan kill? Are you serious? Was that the first time your guild tried him?

We had already wiped 3 times before, I told them if they didn't follow the drill then they may as well go and put the kettle on and wallow in their own failure, i'd rather spend that time showing its bloody easy and save my repair bill/buff food rather than keep having to wipe, even if it is tediously long.

Night before last, I was in Stormwind with my (dis)Enchanter, and someone says they're looking for an enchanter to make them a truesilver rod.

Dude is in Stormwind, has the mats, comes to me.

I'm doing it out of the kindness of my heart, yeah right, as I haven't specified a tip.

The guy gave me 5 gold for it, but if I'd charged I would have charged 1 gold as it's pretty low level.

Another moneymaking tip (doesn't make a lot but...): Don't have your alts in a guild. That way when you're playing them, for AH or whatever, if someone is paying for guild signatures, you can get paid for one mouse click to join, and a few key strokes to leave. I've gotten as much as 10 gold for a guild signature...

As a transmute alchemist I just ask for a flat fee of say 15g. I derived this from the AH based on the widest spread of eternal prices. (Life to Fire at the moment, is this a reasonable method to maximize profit?) I suppose this could go up as I learn the gem transmutes. Any way, the sticking point tends to be the procs. As far as I am concerned, these are mine. I transmute one item into another for a set fee. It is by my greatness alone (well, that and the RNG) that I can ignore the law of conservation of mass. When I do so, tips are of course refunded. To get around the hassle I more often just travel with a purse full of eternals and trade directly + the flat fee of course. Eternal transmutes don’t seem to sell as well as primal transmutes did though.

I have always done a fee, I announce it up front cause I charge what I think my time is worth, not what the market thinks it is. Same with undercutting in the AH, sometimes you need to pull up shop and move to another profitible enterprise instead of cutting your profit.But I am wondering this, Gevlon.. You ever get people who tell you after you quote your fee that say they usually tip for more? Just curious if you do what you say to that. I have always said well some will tip high, some will low, but with my fee, I always know what I will get.

I tend to tip high - for instance I got a blacksmith to make me an epic mace, and tipped 50g. My thought is, it's pretend money! It's like giving someone a bunch of monopoly money - not worth getting worked up about. If a little bit of pretend money can buy some goodwill, that is totally worth it. This is the cheapest form of "pay it forward" that exists. No matter who is getting the tip, if they receive a bigger than expected tip, they will go "oh cool!" and having the power to convey a little bit of excitement and happiness is worth the gametime taken to get the money.

@Viscount: people ALWAYS tell that they usually tip more than my fee. And they ALWAYS tell they DPS 4000+ on Patchwerk. And remain faithful to their GF/BF. And pay their taxes. And so on. They lie to look better than they are.

@Geoffrey: The favor they do to me is just as virtual as the money I pay them.

@GevlonOh I know they will always say that. I was just curious what your responce to them was. Probably you dont even bother because there is no profit in it (no Pun intended)

@everyone about the dinner and wine.Okay, maybe you should take this question to Miss Manners, and when answering these kinds of questions she always says don't bring something unless asked, and if your unsure, ask if they would like you to bring something and if they say no then dont bring something.You aren't paying someone for the meal with the wine. You are repaying them with your company, as part of the whole event your responsibility is to be a charming entertaining guest. They are offering to feed you for the reward of having a different and entertaining dining experience.I am just pointing this out because it was a bad coomparison to the whole tiping example.I HATE THE PRACTICE OF TIPPING. We are expected to shore up a persons wages because their employer does not pay them enough, and because of that the employe blames the customer for malfunctions in the system, not the employers. Where the malfunction is their own.

Here is the article, I think you would like the first one Gevlon, maybe not the second though.http://lifestyle.msn.com/relationships/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=17088975

On tipping :I'm not doing 4k dps on Patchy, that said I can't remember not paying someone for his time (beside guildies that are doing things for me as a raid member). I even pay a guildy for the time she pass crafting things for my enchant business. When I ask for something I pay not only the 30 seconds the guy send for me, but also the time he passed getting the craft. The biggest tip I left was something like 100 gold (BC time) for something I was looking for weeks, and near 50 gold (Vanillia) for the same kind of items. This takes me time to get this gold, but less than upping the skill myself.Time is money, mine is gold. You don't pay, never trade with me again, and if I don't have a good memory, I have a hudge commented soft BL don't worry.

On the wine.For the love of gold, don't mess with bringing wine if you didn't said it. That may sound strange but get in my shoes as a frequent invitor. Well I said to friends, let's come to my place and have a great meal. Then the guy come, offer me a bottle, nice red wine with fish. Then the second come with an other bottle, and the third with... an other bottle of red wine. So with mines we now get 4 bottle of red wine and 1 of white. What can I do ? Serve mine ? Serve others' ? Really, don't bring wine, the payback IS the fact you're here, and if you want to just say you will, or bring chocolate !

How is it possible to go that long on helgan:( 1/3 of the players died on the very first dance on my last weeekends 25 man pug but we lost nobody on the next 2 dance phases and killed in around 9 mins.

I do my enchants on a public service basis rather then for gold. No gold means I never do a enchant for you again,After about the 10th time I just made it a blanket rule for pvp twinks ie lowbies that are x9 level.

The only time I ever charge anything other than tips is when I have my own mats on the line and they have a significant price.

I'm an Inscription/Tailoring Mage and I sell ports on a very frequent basis for "whatever it's worth to you". Only once has someone tipped me under 1g, only twice have I got 1g, and I can't even count the number of times I've gotten 10-25g.

If I'm using your mats to make something, then I again go for nothing but tips. If I make 1g, then I still made a profit because all it costs me is a few seconds of my time. I'm not going to be making money in a major city any other way anyway, so why not get some gold for my time?

If I'm getting service from you and you want to use my mats and also charge me a set amount, then unless you're the only source of that service (unlikely) I'm not going to bother with you unless your asking price is 1-5g. If all you ask for is tips though, then you might get anywhere from 1-100g from me depending on the quality of the item/ench that I'm looking for.

I work an anti-goblin system apparently, and it works just great for me.

Whenever I need to decide on how much to make people pay me for my craft (tipping is such a weird word for it - you are paying someone for skill and time spent, not for being nice about it,) I usually tell them to pay me whatever they think is fair.

How much would you guys pay in this case?

Note: I do this because I got my professions for myself. If I even bother to respond to these things from trade, I'm in a good mood and don't really care about making money.